“A huge THANK YOU to the wonderful gifts, treats and holiday wishes provided by the extended day families. Your generosity and thoughtfulness is greatly appreciated! Wishing your family a very happy and healthy 2016”!

Warmly, Malaina, Brad and Krista

Do it yourself gifts for the holidaysThe students made some wonderful “do it yourself” holiday gifts during the month of December, that we hope you and your family enjoyed. From chocolate chip cookies in a jar, to “52 reasons I love you”, to mason jar treats, to loaves of banana bread- They were busy thinking of others!

Skating at Larz AndersonWe are so excited to join other Brookline Extended Day Programs for Skating Fridays at Larz Anderson! If your child is signed up, please be sure he/she brings a helmet, skates, and warm clothing each week. The skating dates are on Fridays as follows: January 8th, January 15th, January 22nd, January 29th, February 5th, and February 12th.

What to look forward to in January

During the month of January, we will finish up the last two weeks of Clay Club and Breakfast Club. During the “Claytopia” Clay Club students explore the imagination process through the play of clay. Learning different techniques including air-dry clay and sculpey/fimo clay, the students built an architecturally sound clay house; a home fit with furniture, residents, and car park (pictured above!). In the coming week they will learn earthenware “slab” techniques and build their very own drinking mugs. New HEDP hire, Zoe Rose, created this sculpture-based art club due to the students’ interest in the 3D. She was blown away by the students’ lively imaginative ideas (ice cream-cone chimneys and peppermint-pattie powered automobiles!) and their high attention to detail.

During Breakfast Club, students learned how to make buttermilk pancakes, cheese omelets, cinnamon roll pancakes, and ham and cheese omelets. They will learn how to make ham, onion, and cheese quiche, and old fashioned pancakes. Breakfast club was created due to students’ goals of wanting to learn how make pancakes and wanting to learn how to make omelets. After eating the ham and cheese omelets that a student made, she commented, “that was amazing”! Two other students stepped outside of the box since they do not normally eat eggs, and tried and liked the omelet that they learned how to make.

Additionally, we will finish Wednesday clubs with two more weeks of Kindergarten Club and Sports Club. During Kindergarten Club, students enjoyed spending some time with the kindergarten class. They enjoyed reading to them, doing art projects with them as well as being excellent helpers in the classroom downstairs. We learned how to make play dough from scratch as well as how to turn a hand print into a piece of art. We had so much fun spending time with the little ones and learning some of the skills needed to be a great teacher!

During Sports Club, students play a variety of physical gym games. Football, Soccer, Kickball, Wiffleball, etc. They get to use all of the​ir​ energy built up from a long day of school. The students also learn the importance of sportsmanship and playing as a team. It’s a great way to spend the afternoon while also learning important life skills.

Many students have a goal of “learning how to make cake.” On Tuesday, January 19th, we will begin a Cake Baking Club where students will have the opportunity to work towards their goal and learn how to make different kinds of cake. Additionally, students part of any cooking club, are working on a cookbook that will be distributed at the end of the year.

On Mondays, beginning January 25th, students will have the opportunity to take part in Paint Club or Computers Club.

Monthly EventsIron Chef will be held on Tuesday, January 12thFamily Dinner will be held on Thursday, January 28th

January Newsletter Dear 3/4 Families, Happy 2016! We hope you all had a wonderful winter break. The 3rd and 4th graders stayed busy in December with our Holiday Spoons Project. We are thrilled to report it was a huge success! We raised over $200 for Project Bread. Together with the 5-7 group, our students worked hard planning their spoon designs, collecting materials, and putting together a fantastic display of unique spoon creations.Beyond creating the spoons, our 3-4 students took on the challenge of running the Spoon Store independently. They all worked together to sign up for work shifts, keep track of transactions, and explain the project to customers. They did a great job with this important responsibility.We have also been working with Zoe, our new arts specialist. Over the past few weeks, our group has enjoyed incorporating clay, music, and shaddow puppets into our extended day time, and look forward to more arts activities in the coming months. As we head into the new year, we will also be taking on some exciting student goals, like ice-cream making, ginger-bread house building, and creating DIY body scrubs. Please continue to send warm layers reusable shopping bags as the weather gets colder! The bags will be used to help your child transport winter gear to HEDP!-Robin, Emily, Josh, & Paul ​

Welcome 2016Kindergarten Extended Day January NewsletterHappy New Year to everyone! We hope you are having a great start to the new year and that you had a fun filled winter break. We missed everyone and are glad to be back!What’s happened in November & December:In November our class talked a lot about giving. We reviewed the amazing book “The Giving Tree” and made our own giving trees talking about how we can give to others. December brought us a paint party and the start of our letter of the week activities. HEDP has a new art specialist, Zoe Rose! She started working on take-home projects that focuses on seasonal themes. We asked ourselves, “What happens this time of year?, How do you feel in this type of weather?”. You might have received some of the paper snowflakes, clay winter ornaments, and “arctic animal” greeting cards! What’s happening in January:In January we will be continuing with our letter of the week activities! We will be starting with the letter D and moving our way to the letter H by the end of the month. The children have been enjoying incorporating math, science, art, baking, and reading into our letter of the week activities and will continue to do so! When asked, a lot of our kindergartners wanted to know about dinosaurs. So we will be focusing our letter D week on activities about dinosaurs. For letter E we will be doing an egg experiment, learning about the earth, and talking about the sneaky silent letter E in words.During the week of letter F we will be learning about families. We will learn about different families within our classroom and will incorporate art and math activities into this unit. Please send in a photo of your family so your child can share it! We will then hand your family photo in our classroom for the remainder of the year!Letters G & H will be grouped into one week. A few students in our classroom said that they wanted to learn “more about math” so we will be incorporating geometry into our letter G activities. During the letter H we will have a crazy hat day and learn about health. Once again when we asked our students what they want to learn about a few of them said “how my body moves” and “more about exercise”. So we will be talking about how exercising is good and how to keep our bodies healthy.

Finally, we would like to thank each and every one of you for thinking of us during the holiday season. Your generosity and thoughtfulness is appreciated! We thank you for being part of our “Extended” family!Reminders:We go outdoors each day. Please send your child to school with appropriate gear. Warm hats, mittens, boots and snowpants are important. Please provide your child with a reusable shopping bag to store hi/her winter gear in.Please make sure you label all articles of gear.WISH LISTLegosDry Erase markersLarge kitchen tupperwareNo School January 18th- MLK DayWarm Wishes,Angelica, Katrin, Christiane, & Zoe

Warm Wishes in 2016PreK Extended Day January NewsletterWelcome back! We hope that you had a fun filled winter break and have a happy and healthy new year!What’s happened in November & December:In November our class talked a lot about giving. We talked about veterans and how they gave to us and donated candy to them. Then we talked about how we can give. We reviewed the amazing book “The Giving Tree” and made our own versions of giving trees with leaves saying how we can give back to others. What’s happening in January:In January we will be continuing with our letter of the week activities! We will be starting with the letter D and moving our way to the letter H by the end of the month. Letter D’s week will be dedicated to dinosaurs. We will incorporate measuring, art, and discovering into our unit on dinosaurs. During the week of letter F we will be learning about families. We will learn about different families within our classroom and will incorporate art and math activities into this unit. Please send in a photo of your family so your child can share it with us!Letters G & H will be grouped into one week. We will learn some geometry by focusing on shapes. We will discover what shapes can fit inside other shapes as well as creating shapes out of recycled materials. Letter H will be focused on health. When asked what our students want to learn a few responded with “about exercise” and “how our bodies work”. For our health unit we will talk about how exercise and other tools help keep us healthy. Finally, we would like to thank each and every one of you for thinking of us during the holiday season. Your generosity and thoughtfulness is appreciated! We thank you for being part of our “Extended” family!No school January 18th- MLK Day Warm Wishes,Angelica, Katrin, & Christiane​

Minion “A-O-K” wreath JanuaryMinion NewsletterJanuary 2016Thank you for your Generous donations and thoughtful gifts over the holidays. They were greatly appreciated!The “Minions” have had a very exciting couple of months. During the month of November, the children learned about giving back by participating in daily acts that required them to be thoughtful and perform kind deeds for someone in the school. Jeffrey in first grade remarked, “These activities made me feel thankful. They (the recipient of the kind act) do things for us and we could do something for them.” Will in second grade reflected that the activities “made me feel happy because it’s helping people.” Lastly, Ezria in first grade shared that donating her candy to the Veterans Day community service project made her feel “happy because they (veterans) protect us.” The children have also spent time observing each other’s thoughtful actions and have been sharing their observations with the group. After sharing the acts with the group they have had a chance to add colorful ribbons on to the Minon “A - O - K” (“Acts of Kindness”) wreath. December was an exciting month filled learning about the steps of the scientific method and then conducting their very own experiments. It was a ton of ful! The children experimented with how air travels, Why flutes can be made out of straws, What does distance do to dropped eggs, How to make explosive snow, Why & how raisins dance and Why jello can glow in the dark. Over the past few months, the children shared that they have a common goal of learning about the 50 United States. To accomplish this goal, the children will have the opportunity to learn a song that will teach them the names of the 50 states. They will also participate in daily activities that will help them learn about the uniqueness of some of the states during the months of January and February. The Minion group will continue to have the opportunity to participate in “One Hit Wonder Crafts” with Zoe, the new HEDP art teacher, on Monday afternoons. Additionally, Zoe will visit the Minion classroom every Wednesday from 3:45-4:45pm for children who would like to participate a 4 week session of art classes. Finally, Zoe will be spending Friday afternoons in January with the Minions who would like to participate in “Musical Fridays” from 5:00-5:45pm. Our guest readers will continue to visit the Minion room on Tuesdays from 4:00-4:30p.m. as the children appear to be enjoying their time with our special guests.

Please make sure that as the weather changes that children are dressing appropriately because we always go outside to enjoy some fresh air. We encourage you to supply 1 reusable shopping bag for your child’s belongings as winter gear (hats, boots, gloves, thick jackets...). This will help keep all of your child’s belongings together.

A couple of reminders this month…* Your child’s safety is one of our main priorities. To help us with this, please remember to sign your child out everyday. The sign out book will be located outside the cafeteria along with a board showing the location of the 1/2 Yellow class at that time.

Friday, January 1st - No SchoolThursday, January 14th - Birhtday BashMonday, January 18th - No School

​From the 1/2 green teaching team- "Thank you all so much for the holiday gifts, treats and greetings. We appreciate your thoughtfulness and kindness! Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2016!”-Diana, Tess and Amanda

We started off the New Year in a new location! You will always find our location listed on the Green Board near the sign out but we have started to share space with 1R. 1R is located near Dr. Miners office and the Teachers Room. Our class is excited about this new adventure!

The month of January is filled with great hands on and thoughtful activities. We will be working on making storybooks and musical instruments while we explore why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is so important. Each week 2 students will have the opportunity to read their book of choice to the class to build reading fluency while sharing a fun story. We will also begin using the Rock Wall in the Heath School gym toward the end of the month!

HEDP welcomed a new teacher named Zoe Rose Scott. Zoe will be working as an Art Specialist and will be creating fun hands on expressive projects! Students will create amazing art work with Zoe on Tuesday afternoons.

Additional News, Notes and RemindersChildren should come to HEDP with a hat, gloves, scarf, warm jacket, gloves and boots each day as we play outdoors. We encourage your family to supply a sturdy reusable shopping bag for your child to store his/her winter clothing in. This will also help organize your child's belongings. We will continue to go outside, so please be sure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather. We recommend keeping a change of clothes in their backpacks incase they get wet outside.